12/28/04 - EXETER - The first significant winter snowstorm hit the Seacoast with the ferocity of a uncoiling spring, piling more than 6 inches of snow in some areas before heading to sea Monday morning.

12/28/04 - EXETER - New Year’s Eve falls on a Friday this year, and while revelers look forward to bidding 2004 farewell and ringing in 2005, law enforcement officials are taking precautions to ensure a safe holiday for all.

12/28/04 - EXETER - Maggie Wood Hassan apologized for greeting a visitor to her law office in jeans. "I had two sick kids this morning and the furnace isn’t working," she said.

12/28/04 - STRATHAM - Stella Scamman laughed when she answered her back door and was asked, "Is the Speaker of the House in?"

12/28/04 - BRENTWOOD - It is remarkable to celebrate one’s 110th birthday. It is extraordinary to do so in good health, with all of one’s faculties intact.

12/28/04 - An important part of the program at the Seacoast School of Technology is making sure ninth- and 10th-graders from Epping, Exeter, Newmarket, Raymond, Sanborn Regional and Winnacunnet High Schools learn about the opportunities available at SST and how to apply.

12/28/04 - EXETER - When the Board of Selectmen approved the lion’s share of the town’s warrant for spring 2005, three items were still being firmed up.

12/28/04 - PORTSMOUTH - From California to the East Coast, companies with their ear to the ground are offering a new type of perk for employees this holiday season: car bonuses. For the right kind of car, anyway.

12/28/04 - NEWFIELDS - Newfields Elementary School fifth-graders have undertaken an intriguing class project. Under the supervision of teacher assistant Melinda Willette, the students are tracking the travels of a toy stuffed lobster named "Nessy" as it makes its way from their classroom to California and back.

12/28/04 - "Please tell everyone we are all ok more later - Bill" That short e-mail message, received by family and friends of Bill and Susan McClure just after midnight Monday, was enough to let everyone who knows them finally exhale.

12/28/04 - FREMONT - Sam, a 3-year-old golden retriever, is a survivor.

12/28/04 - KINGSTON - Teachers in the Sanborn Regional Education Association and the school district signed a 3-year contract last week totaling $1.9 million.

12/28/04 - HAMPTON - Hampton drivers will get a free pass through the tollbooths in their town should Gov. Craig Benson get his way.

12/28/04 - HAMPTON FALLS - Little did Jeff Gove realize that the riding lessons his 7-year-old daughter Brooke requested about nine years ago would lead not only to a family passion for horses, but to a new family business as well.

12/28/04 - HAMPTON - A trial date has been set for Planning Board member Ken Sakurai, who is facing charges of theft by extortion in Rockingham Superior Court.

12/28/04 - HAMPTON - Tommy Gone Loco is going more traditional as the downtown sandwich shop closes this week to reopen Monday, Jan. 3, as Just Gen’s Sandwich Shop and More.

12/28/04 - PLAISTOW - Timberlane Regional School District administrators still don’t know who wrote a threatening note found outside the high school library recently, but at this point they believe it was a hoax.

12/28/04 - HAMPTON FALLS - Mother and daughter, Alice and Abby Tonry of the Tonry Tree Farm in Hampton Falls, have been recognized as this year’s recipients of the John Hoar award by the Rockingham County Woodland Owners Association (RCWOA) at the association’s annual dinner.

12/28/04 - EXETER - The submission deadline for nominations for the Exeter Area Chamber of Commerce Business of the Year Awards is Friday, Jan. 14.

12/29/04 - KENMORE, Ohio -- A northeast Ohio family hoping to see choirs perform holiday music on Christmas morning instead saw adult programming on the local public access television station.

12/28/04 - New Hampshire Health and Human Services Commissioner John Stephen was in the Seacoast area this week touting the state’s Medicaid reform plan, dubbed GraniteCare. He came here not only to talk about the plan, but to investigate agencies that could offer services to the growing number of the state’s elderly who may not be eligible for nursing home care under the new plan.

12/28/04 - The following people passed away recently. . .

12/28/04 - Area police made the following arrests and conducted the following business recently...

12/28/04 - EXETER - Spenser Young, a member of New Hampshire East’s Mite II hockey team, is no stranger to scoring goals. The 7-year-old from Brentwood also knows how to celebrate a goal ... or two ... or three.

12/28/04 - EXETER - A row for Stephen Richardson isn’t exactly a row down the Old Swannee.

12/28/04 - To the youth at New Outlook Teen Center in Exeter, "retro" probably means no further back than the ‘80s, but this spring they’ll be learning a bit about their parents’ and teachers’ "retro."

12/28/04 - It used to be easy. Before globalization, air freight, and the houseplant boom. Back when the mandatory Christmas plant was a poinsettia (Euphorbia pulcherrima) and when they only came in red. And it was easiest with poinsettias. We just lived with them until the season changed, and then we threw them out.

12/28/04 - BRENTWOOD - As testament to her passion for "eating local," when Juli Brussell migrated with her husband Kevin from Illinois to New Hampshire she insisted on hauling along a large freezer full of their own beef, their homegrown vegetables and their neighbor’s lamb and chickens.

12/28/04 - BOSTON - Lawmakers who want to expand legal gambling in Massachusetts are renewing their push for casinos and slot machines, saying the state needs to hold onto the gambled dollars they say are being lost to neighboring states.

12/28/04 - FAIRHAVEN, Mass. - Town workers plan to try to trap dozens of wild cats this week that have been pestering residents of a rural neighborhood.

12/28/04 - COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - Rescuers piled up bodies Monday along southern Asian coastlines devastated by tidal waves that obliterated seaside towns and killed more than 22,000 people in 10 countries.

12/28/04 - BAGHDAD, Iraq - A suicide car bomber killed 15 people Monday in trying to assassinate the head of Iraq’s strongest Shiite party before parliamentary elections next month, while the biggest Sunni Muslim political group dealt a blow to ballot plans by withdrawing from the campaign because of the lack of security.

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